I just want to weigh in for a few moments on the incredible Russian hoax and across-the-board corruption throughout Washington, D.C., that was unmasked by John Durham's incredibly comprehensive report released last evening.
This is a story of corruption on a grand scale in a Democratic administration in the White House, in the media, in the FBI, in the CIA, in the Justice Department, and on and on. The Wall Street Journal's editorial posted this afternoon entitled, "Why the Durham Report Matters to Democracy" — I recommend reading that. It's worth it.
I'm not going to go through everything, and I'm sure there's a lot that you have seen and heard in the last 24 hours, but when we ran the headline last night, "John Durham finds DOJ, FBI 'failed to uphold' mission of 'strict fidelity to the law' in Trump-Russia probe," I had no idea how incredibly true and broad-based the charges were.
Special counsel John Durham absolutely torched the FBI and the Justice Department. In fact, Mr. Durham concludes that there was essentially no basis for any investigation. There was never any actual evidence of collusion between Mr. Trump or his campaign and Russia.
Let me just repeat that: The Durham report says the FBI lacked any actual evidence of collusion between Mr. Trump, his campaign and Russia. In fact, The Wall Street Journal suggests that the whole biased FBI probe may have started as a Russian intelligence operation.
Now, as someone who has followed these Russian hoax goings-on while in office in the government and since, I did not know that presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had approved a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to deliberately attack Trump by creating a phony scandal regarding Russia. According to The Wall Street Journal editorial today, former CIA director John Brennan briefed this to President Obama, Vice President Biden, AG Loretta Lynch and FBI Director Comey.
They all heard about this phony plan and campaign and then the FBI refused to act either on this phony campaign or later on the phony Steele dossier. Remember Steele — he was working for the Clinton campaign?
So, Obama knew, Biden knew, Mrs. Clinton knew, AG Lynch knew, FBI Director Comey knew and CIA Director Brennan knew that this was a phony operation from Day 1.
Maybe some of you folks knew about these meetings, but I hadn't read this before and I'm astonished. It went right to the top. Mr. Durham's report chronicles just how left-wing biased the FBI was, including bringing phony materials to the FISA court that the FBI knew were phony, with stuff drummed up and other left-wing, pro-Hillary water-carrying by these discredited FBI people Kevin Clinesmith, Lisa Page and her boyfriend Peter Strzok and, of course, the mainstream media going along with all this every step of the way. Pulitzer Prizes were won, but they all ought to be given back.
As an important point, current FBI Director Christopher Wray has essentially acknowledged the FBI's corruption by telling Congress that the agency is implementing dozens of so-called corrective actions, but as Durham points out, it really comes down to the integrity of the people who take the oath of service. Durham calls for the need of a renewed fidelity to the FBI's guiding principles.
If you go back and just think about all the wasted time and money, with an actual impeachment dealing with layers and layers of phony evidence and assertions, of course Mr. Trump was exonerated, but the far-left Democrats continued to talk about the Russian hoax, and that of course bled into the Ukrainian hoax, and any number of anti-Trump actions that still go on to this very day.
I'm not saying the former president is or was perfect, but I am saying on this Russian hoax business, his accusers were utterly, totally, completely wrong. Literally, there ought to be a law against this sort of nonsense.
How and why none of the purveyors of the Russian hoax are behind bars is a mystery to me. I guess you can't be jailed for bad judgment, but then again, a lot of folks were lying under oath and still doing it to this very day. The whole Robert Mueller episode was a complete farce.
Comey was a self-righteous fool, but you look at the roster of officials who were in some shape or form part of this from former President Obama, former VP and now-President Biden, their AG and now CIA director. I mean, it just boggles the mind. They all knew.
Criminal abuse of power up and down the line during the Obama days. Mr. Trump, looking at all this, would love to see a lot more justice brought to the gang of dirty political tricksters who perpetrated this nonsense on him and his administration and, frankly, who can blame him?
I'll just quote from The Wall Street Journal editorial today talking about the collusion of the press corp: "... it’s a major reason that much of the country believes nothing it reads or hears about Donald Trump," but an ever-energetic Donald Trump is working hard to dispel these doubts and move forward on his make America great future agenda.
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Meanwhile, my very last point is an incredulous, "there they go again." The IRS on Monday removed the entire investigative team from its tax fraud probe of Hunter Biden, acting on the orders of the Merrick Garland Justice Department. Really?
Pulling the IRS off of the Hunter Biden tax fraud schemes, and lord knows what other schemes he was engaged in that would include taxable transactions and events. Did you say the Biden Justice Department? What a shocker. Nothing seems to have changed in Washington, D.C., and that's why it's easy to say: Save America. Clean the swamp.
This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow’s opening commentary on the May 16, 2023, edition of "Kudlow."